We are writing to you today because you are a resident of ##A# Plimpton (a corner room) with difficult news to share so close to the start of the semester. As you may have heard, Barnard is experiencing a significant housing shortage for the upcoming academic year. We currently have over 80 students for whom we have no vacant spaces in our residence halls. The combination of a higher yield rate, fewer housing cancellations, and a significantly higher number of housing applications have all contributed to our shortage this year.

Since many of the students who we are unable to house come from outside of the tri-state area, we are trying to create additional residence hall space to house as many of these students as possible. One way in which the College will accomplish this is by changing the occupancy of your Plimpton room from a single to a double room. We understand that this change is unexpected and may be difficult. After a thorough review of all other options, the College has decided that this change in Plimpton is the best way to accomplish our goal of housing as many students for the Fall as possible.

Under these circumstances, we would like to offer you the opportunity to locate a friend to move into the double with you. To do so, you will need to follow these steps:

1. Identify someone who is both a current Barnard student with a room assignment for the Fall in a Barnard residence hall (ex. one of your current suitemates). Note: CU students are not eligible.

2. Both you and this other students will need to email [email protected] your Barnard email account no later than 8am this Monday, August 13 to state in writing that you both wish for that student to move into the corner double with you. We cannot process a move request without receiving an email from both students.

If we do not hear from you (and a friend) before 8am this Monday, August 13, we will assign someone from our Wait List to your room and provide your new roommate’s name and email address via email prior to the start of the academic year.

In recognition of the inconvenience the conversion your room to a double has caused, you will be charged a discounted rate of $3000 (vs.$4120 for a multiple) for your room this Fall. If you locate a BC student with a current room assignment to move into the double with you, that student will be charged the special rate of $3000 as well. If you have already paid the full price for a single ($4740), the difference in price will be credited back to your student account within the next few weeks. If you have set up a payment plan, you can contact the Bursar Office to adjust your monthly payment amount.

Should you decide instead to live off campus and cancel your housing, you may avoid the $1000 cancellation fee by submitting a Housing Cancellation Form (http://barnard.edu/reslife/policies/housing/cancellations) before 8am on Monday, August 13. Any cancellation form received after that date/time will result in the $1000cancellation fee.

The College is making this change to Plimpton corner rooms on a permanent basis and Plimpton will be available for 6-person groups starting at 2013 Room Selection this Spring.

Thank you for helping us to deal with this unexpected and difficult situation. We greatly appreciate your understanding and cooperation. If you have questions, please email [email protected]

As one of the students who was only informed THIS WEEK that I had no place to live, I am immensely grateful to these students, even though they're probably mad. I was in one of those large corner rooms last year, and they have more square footage than the average Barnard double, so you'll survive, don't worry.

They informed us around 6 PM tonight about the change. Although i understand it's necessary to take these steps to ensure students have housing, I think it's crazy for reslife to think we can figure out our year's housing in 5 days. It's also unfortunate because the people who occupied the corner rooms were usually the ones with the extremely high lottery numbers that got their suite mates into the suites in the first place.

Columbia screw'd up their yield too? Things are tougher out there they they figured eh? That blows. It's one thing to get the shaft(no pun intended) as a sophmore due to the lottery but another thing for it to happen as a freshman. Some of these students should get 3 credits towards their degree, call itan involuntary life-seminar, The economics and statastics of limited space 101

well, as much as this does suck it was pretty much inevitable - the class of 2015 at Barnard was much bigger than expected coming in as freshmen, and they had to make the sulz study lounges into quads.

Exactly. If ResLife already knew that the class of 2015 was that big, then they should have planned ahead for future housing immediately. It is completely unfair to the juniors and seniors living in Plimpton to change their housing plans because the sophomore class is too big.

In all seriousness, people should honestly try living off campus, and I did my senior year. While you may have to give up a 24 hour security guard and "community" (which only exists your first two weeks of school anyways), you can get places for much less expensive than what Columbia/Barnard prices, and probably better quality to (as long as you have a good super). Look either south to about 106th or north to about 125th, and you can find a lot of gems (and no not just "bad" places in questionable areas—there are plenty that are just fine). And then you don't have to worry where to find housing for the summer. Or not having access to a place for New Year's. Or a number of things.

Thing is, financial aid gets heavily reduced if you do so, since you're treated (at least at Barnard) as a commuter and cost of attendance goes down by 10k while your EFC stays the same. So not really doable for half of the Barnard population.

Only the super rich could possibly live off campus. not only would you lose significant financial aid, but you also have to factor in all the extra expenses of furniture, security, all utilities, phone, cable, repairs,cleaning, communting, transportation, etc. Generally not feasible.

I don't receive financial aid (I'm on tuition exemption), but I have to say I'm renting an apartment this coming year (already basically moved in) and all my expenses (including rent, unlimited monthly metrocard, furniture etc.) comes to less than "renting" a shitty dorm did or could.

It's not unfeasible, perhaps in 5 days it is. But doable within a smaller budget.

Seems kind of funny that Columbia housing is still opening new options (the apartments and the Greek dealio thing) while Barnard is having to condense options. Can't Barnard and Columbia reslife get together and do a more drastic housing swap sort of thing than previously precedented?

Columbia is doing that for CC/SEAS to solve their own yield size and housing waitlist problems. They do promise guaranteed housing and rightly should be fixing their own fuck ups before worrying about Barnard's. Harsh, but true.

Well, that is generally correct. Columbia guarantees housing for all CC and SEAS students for all years, but if you leave the housing system for a year for an unapproved reason, you may not necessarily be guaranteeed a room when you reenter.

It'll be pretty unbearable. Barnard already has a few singles-masquerading-as-doubles in the lower floors of 620. I had a horrible lottery number my freshman year, was put on the guaranteed housing wait list and was placed in one of those rooms with a random student. Living in a 13 x13 single was awful, but at least I had some idea when I signed my housing contract of what I was getting into: I was a rising sophomore with one of the worst lottery numbers. Not only are the students in Plimpton juniors and seniors (may of whom have never lived in a single before), but they probably had the best lottery number in their suite.

All I know is I'm buying all my friends in this situation a lot of wine come September.

Why? They are two completely separate schools with separate endowments, buildings and housing. Columbia and Barnard swap equal numbers of rooms every year for diversity. That is the advantage of going to Columbia. They own endless buildings and have endless housing options. They are currently renovating more brownstones as well as an entire complex on 113th that will be opening this spring. All CC and SEAS students are always guaranteed campus housing.

"Extra" Columbia housing is given to GS, transfers, grad students, returning students, faculty, visiting students and faculty etc. So it will all be disributed. Barnard is a separate school and takes care of its own students and housing and has nothing to do with Columbia housing.

Not entirely true. Last year, there were a few Plimpton suites that were entirely Columbia students because Barnard had the extra space, and it's not the only time that's happened. I'm not saying it's Columbia's job to solve this problem, but the schools do help each other out with housing when they can.

Columbia students who didn't make it into a five-person suite were offered the opportunity to move to Plimpton. Why did Barnard housing donate rooms to Columbia students if they can't even house their own student body?

NO ONE who thought they signed up for a wonderful Plimpton single then was forced to find a roommate within a matter of days is going to give a cent back to Barnard. The administration needs to take experiences like this seriously if they ever want to get a real endowment.Many weeks in advance, ResLife should have emailed everyone in a single above a certain size and offered them free housing (with no decrease in financial aid) if they turn their room into a double. They also could have offered more seniors and maybe juniors the option of using financial aid to pay rent off campus.

You are suggesting fair and just solutions, but they mean that Barnard would collect less money. Another correct solution would have been for Barnard to plan a little more in advance, and then to suck it up and find more housing in morning side heights, which you can always do at market rent prices. They could have taken a slight hit on rent minus what they charge students, but at least avoided this major fuck up. Instead they decided to be penny-wise and screw over juniors and seniors right before the semester starts. Good luck raising money, practices like this doom a college to mediocrity.

This also means that some Barnard students are going to be randomly assigned into coed housing. Some of the students living in the affected suites are guys who go to Columbia, and Barnard is STILL going to randomly assign people into those suites. I found this out from a friend who's affected. That's pretty insensitive/basically negates the whole point of going to a women's college...

are you barnard? most of me and my 'nard friends wouldn't give a damn about that. I didn't go to an all-women college because I want to be isolated: I came because I value the school's approach to leadership and education. Maybe the "point" of going to an all-women's college is different to you and me, but I'm a little confused about how mingled housing (which can be found in many of the barnard dorms that also function as apartment buildings) voids a whole education.

The demand for UAH over summer is substantially lower. That's never the concern. A huge number of GS and grad students leave over summer.

During the school year UAH is all full, and GS can't offer housing to nearly enough students who desperately want it. UAH may be a bureaucratic cluster fuck, but it doesn't have housing available for the GS and grad students who want it, nevermind Barnard women.

I am a resident of a suite that is being converted over to 6 people. We have been in contact with Barnard ResLife as well as other offices as we try to work out solutions to the various problems this has caused us. What is most frustrating is the lack of help and concern we have received from our school. They keep calling our situation an "inconvenience" and this offends us because the situation is more than that. We are wondering if anyone else in a converted suite has had similar feelings. Although at this point we cannot change anything that has happened, we feel it's important for us all to share our experiences and report it so that something like this will never happen again. Please contact me at [email protected] if you and/or your suitemates would like to join us in filing a report. The more of us stand together, the more likely other students won't be affected in the future.